ke his
damages, more damages than he would ever get in a court of law, and
then let bygones be bygones.

While dressing of a morning she used to examine the bruises on her
neck, her arms, and her legs. After passing through the stage of
blackness and purpleness, their discoloration had spread out into
faint violet and yellow; now already this was beginning to fade; and
it seemed that as the ugly marks of his hands disappeared from her
skin, the memory of all the causes that had brought them there began
itself to weaken. Certainly the despairing anguish that she had felt,
the submission to his unpardoning wrath, the tacit agreement that the
discovery gave him license to do anything he liked with her, not only
then but throughout the future--all this pertained to a state of mind
which could be coldly recollected, but which could not be warmly
revived.

How he had knocked her about! Standing before the toilet-glass and
looking at her bruises musingly, she tried to remember in what part of
the room, and at which period of the long volcanic discussion, each
one had been received. All the neck marks could be accounted for on
the bed, when he was holding her down and shaking her; that graze
above the knee, outside the right thigh had come when she rolled over
by the chest of drawers. Raising her eyes in order to see if the lip
and eyebrow continued to mend satisfactorily, she was surprised by the
general expression of her face. Positively she was smiling. The smile
vanished at once, but it had been there--a gentle, melancholy, yet
proud little smile. And reflecting, she understood that deep in her
thoughts there was truly pride whenever she dwelt upon her husband's
violence. It did prove so conclusively how immense was his love.

Jealousy is of course the inevitable accompaniment of love; and while
it is active everything else is pushed aside, postponed, or forgotten.
And she smiled again, as she thought what queer creatures men are, how
extravagantly different from women. She had never understood them,
and possibly never would do so. For instance, how strange that old
Will should not for a moment have been softened by a recognition of
her success in extricating him from his difficulty! One might have
expected that gratitude would almost counterbalance anger. But, no,
not for a fraction of a second could he think that, although what she
had done might be wrong, it had been done with the most unselfish
intention and had pro